Kerry Looks at: Pixelvision 2000 Camcorder

Kerry takes a look at a very innovative video camcorder that was sold during the 1980s: the Fisher-Price Pixelvision 2000 Camcorder! This video camcorder was extremely unusual in that it shoots black & white video on audio cassettes! The Fisher-Price PXL2000 (also known as the PixelVision by Fisher-Price, and the KiddieCorder by some of its fans) is a toy black-and-white camcorder produced in 1987 that uses a compact audio cassette as its recording medium. The original designer at Fisher-Price was Andrew Bergman. An ordinary cassette transport is used for storage of both audio and video. The PXL2000 holds 11 minutes of shooting by moving the tape at a high speed, roughly 16 7/8 in/s (429 mm/s) as opposed to cassette's standard speed of 1 7/8 in/s (48 mm/s) on a C90 CrO2 (chromium dioxide) cassette. The high speed is necessary because video requires a wider bandwidth than standard audio recording. The PXL2000 records the video information on the left audio channel of the cassette, and the audio on the right. In order to reduce the amount of information recorded to fit within the narrow bandwidth of the sped-up audio cassette, it uses an ASIC to generate slower video timings than conventional TVs use. It scanns the 90 by 120 pixel CCD fifteen times a second, feeding the results through a filtering network, and then to both a frequency modulation circuit driving the left channel of the cassette head and to an ADC, which fed the framestore. The old tapes I used in the Pixelvision camera are not playable by me as the camera no longer operates properly. However, I'm working on the problem and when I'm able to regain the images I shot back in the 1980s, I'll upload some of them for all to see. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy looking at this rare camera. Taped: January 31, 2009